Tempted...

One of my resolutions for the New Year was to cut back on my spending (i.e. shopping), and I must say that I have been doing REALLY well. My success is probably due to the fact that I haven't had time to set foot in a mall due to my crazy school schedule, but I'm still rather proud of myself.

One of the benefits (or curses) of living in Florida is the plethora of outlet malls. Fortunately for me, I hate driving so I am never tempted to make the hour drive to Orlando's outlets. However, there is a rather fabulous outlet mall that lurks just minutes from the psychiatric hospital where I go for clinical training. I have managed to resist it's alluring pull the 9 months I've been in training. And then today I spied a classmate wearing the most darling pair of red flats adorned with hot pink bows. When I complemented her on them, she informed me that they were Kate Spade and from the outlet! So I spent the rest of Stats class daydreaming of the outlet mall and the fabulous Kate Spade shoes just waiting to be adopted.

I know I should be good and just stay away. But all it would take is one little detour after I get done with training on Friday...

Sigh.
The shoe that started it all. These are not really my style but they looked adorable on my classmate. And they opened Pandora's box of possibilities.

Some rather fantastic news...

If you've been reading my blog the past few months, you may recall me mentioning the stress that is the Clinical Competency Exam. I have been working on this particular case since the beginning of January, and yesterday I had my oral defense...and I PASSED!!!

I am so relieved because this means I have passed my diagnostic training and can now move on to clinical training in therapy. And more importantly, it means I have somewhat of a life again! I woke up sick today (probably due to the thick layer of pollen that is coating the city), but I am so thankful I got sick today rather than yesterday.

To celebrate my accomplishment, I bought 3 dresses at Banana Republic, a skirt at JCrew, a compact purple leather Bible to carry in my purse, and The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Old Testament volume). Hubby is working in Los Angeles this week, but we will definitely be celebrating when he gets home!

The CCE process is very formal, and the presenting student is expected to bring refreshments for the professors and other students that attend the defense. I provided a spread of homemade finger foods, including these delicious Coconut Cream-Filled Macaroons:

(Recipe from Martha Stewart's cookies)

Where have you been all my life?

Although I consider growing up Southern to be a privilege, sometimes I discover that I've missed out on certain things because they were not necessarily popular or common in the South. Recently I discovered one such thing: Nutella.


I seriously had never even heard of Nutella until a couple of weeks ago. I saw it at the grocery store the other day and was curious what all of the hype was about. So I tried it today and I think I may now be addicted. It was AMAZING! I ate a bit on some toast and I just kept thinking "I am eating chocolate toast! This is the best thing ever!"

I was also introduced to the Fluffer-Nutter sandwich this year (again, not something I ever encountered in my 26 years as a Louisianian). Southerners love marshmellows and peanut butter, so how have we been missing out on the Fluffer-Nutter?!?

I am already looking forward to my Nutella breakfast tomorrow. Starting the day with chocolate toast...it doesn't get much better than that!

Southerners eat the strangest things...

Growing up in Louisiana, I never realized that many of my favorite foods would be considered "weird" or even "gross" to people that lived in other parts of the country. It wasn't until I became close friends with a couple of Yankees that I realized our culinary gems weren't so widely accepted by the general population. I keep telling my girlfriends that they don't know what they're missing, but I haven't been able to convince them to try my beloved boudin, fried duck, crawfish, or shrimp and grits. Fortunately for me, festivals seem to cater to the Southerner's love of crazy foods. At last weekend's strawberry festival, the most gossiped about concoction was chocolate dipped bacon.

Yes, you read that right. Salty smoky bacon dipped in lusciously sweet milk chocolate.

First of all, let me just say how much I love this sign. The little pig himself is dripping with chocolate, urging you to try his special treat. At first, I thought "Chocolate dipped bacon? Now that's taking it a little too far." But, we Southerners will eat anything...just to say we did.


If chocolate dipped bacon isn't your thing, you can experience the Southern diet by eating something fried. Personally, I love to fry fresh veggies. I'm sure this process strips the veggies of their nutritional content, but it's delicious so I really don't care. At festivals, you can get ANYTHING fried, from candy bars to Twinkies to Oreo cookies. Hubby couldn't resist the deep fried Pepsi.


And while funnel cakes are a classic festival favorite, have you ever seen this many variations?


I know I should really try to eat healthier, but yogurt and granola just isn't nearly as satisfying as fried dill pickles dipped in ranch dressing. My daddy really says it best when he explains that he will continue to eat this way because "our ancestors did and they were perfectly healthy and lived long lives". I say amen to that :)

Weddings and Eggs...

(photo from tampabay.metromix.com)

This past weekend, one of my best friends got engaged! She also passed her CCE last night, so a celebration was definitely in order. My girlfriends and I decided to celebrate with a leisurely breakfast at Daily Eats, which is a cute little diner in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Tampa. I don't know why we've never planned a breakfast get-together before...we had such a fabulous time! The food was amazing (I enjoyed a delicious breakfast of eggs Benedict, fresh fruit, and coffee) and the atmosphere was very cozy. The six of us had so much fun giggling and gossiping in our booth. It was a lovely way to start the day and reminded me of just how thankful I am for good friends.

Strawberry Shortcake

Yesterday, hubby and I headed inland to Plant City for the Florida Strawberry Festival. Plant City is famous for their delicious strawberries and their festival is one of the most popular events of the year. The weather was gorgeous although it quickly heated up to a balmy 85 degrees. The festival was a bit like a huge fair...there was a midway, hundreds of food vendors, live music, and various forms of entertainment. The festival also boasts an impressive concert line-up including Jessica Simpson and Taylor Swift. Hubby and I ate our way through the festival, enjoying strawberry shortcake, chocolate dipped strawberries, strawberry iced tea, strawberry lemonade and some stranger concoctions that I will share with you in future posts :)

The Create Your Own Strawberry Shortcake Bar

My favorite dessert!


Beautiful strawberries were everywhere


Chocolate dipped berry kabob...mmmm mmmm!


I nicknamed this vendor the "Everything Fried Stand"


These little piggies are famous! They all had super cute names like "Hillary Rod-HAM Clinton".


Here go the little piggies racing around the track. They also swim a lap in the little red pool off to the right and then race after the finish swimming!


One of the best parts of the day was seeing the BMX Pro show. All of these guys had won X-Game gold medals and were AMAZING!



We ended the day exhausted and with very full bellies. I absolutely LOVE going to festivals and strawberries are my favorite fruit, so it was a perfect day! (And it didn't hurt that I actually got to spend a Saturday with Hubby instead of stuck inside with my nose in a book!)

Having fun with the letter B...

I am finally getting around to playing the Letter Game! My lovely friend Nicole at A Sweet Soft Southern Thrill assigned me the letter "B". Nicole did an awesome job with the letter "G"...she is so witty and creative! Here are the instructions per her blog: if you want to play, leave a comment on this post letting me know, and I'll assign you a letter. You post ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

1. Bubble tea.
Last summer I was completely addicted to bubble tea! If you aren't familiar with this drink, it originated in Taiwan and contains little tapioca pearls ("bubbles" or "bobas"). My absolute favorite version to order is a Thai tea with bobas.

(Image from centurycafe.com)

2. Books.
I am slightly obsessed with books and love spending hours browsing bookstores. My book shelves contain quite an eclectic mix...topics include fashion, history, religion, psychology, cooking, chick lit, criminology, and make-up artistry.

3. The Bible.
I can't live without the greatest book of all time!

4. Bears.
Bears have ALWAYS been my favorite animal. I especially love polar bears. I love bears so much that I got a dog that looks like a little black bear!

(Image from firstpeople.us)

5. Bellinis.
My favorite drink...I love having these for brunch with prosciutto.


6. Belts.
I love all kinds of belts...skinny, wide, leather, studded, jeweled. However, I hardly ever wear belts with pants! I usually wear them over dresses, sweaters, or long cardigans. I also love to wear them with high waisted skirts.

7. Balenciaga.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. From your soft leather bags to your architectural shoes, you make me covet your works of art.



8. The beach.
Enough said, right? Sadly, since I moved to Florida I hardly ever have time to go to the beach! I am going to make it my mission this summer to spend more time there (so I guess that means I need to start cutting back on #9).

9. The Big Mac.
When I was little, I hated McDonalds. Then in college, two of my best friends were McDonald's addicts and converted me over to the dark side. Now I can't let a week pass without driving through and devouring their delicious fries and most infamous burger.



10. Ballet.
I started taking ballet when I was about three years old and have loved it ever since. I'm no longer a skilled ballerina (these days I do good to even touch my toes...ha!), so I love to go see the ballet every chance I get. Among my favorites are classics such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

I certainly missed you lovely ladies last week! I had to take a short break from the blog world in order to get my CCE finished and focus on exams. I have more exams this week, but it feels so good to be done with the written component of my CCE! Now I just have to wait and see if I passed written so I can move on to the presentation stage of the process. I will have a bit more free time this week and can't wait to get caught up on all of your blogs!

Hubby has been doing his best to ease my stress level during this hectic time. We had a fun date night at my favorite pizza place Mellow Mushroom.


We indulged on my favorite pizza in the whole wide world...the gourmet white pizza. Soooooo good!

On Valentine's night, we went to a comedy club with my cousin and her husband. The headliners were two women who were funny at times but a little too raunchy at others. I don't understand why some women comedians think that in order to be funny they need to (1) say the "F" word in every sentence, (2) continuously discuss the male genitalia, or (3) make racist jokes. My cousin and I (being the Southern belles that we are) were a little uncomfortable at times and discussed afterwards that it was obvious the comedians were NOT Southerners. Dirty jokes aside, it was still a pretty fun night.

Hubby and I on Valentine's Day

We also spent a fun evening with two of my girlfriends and their boyfriends. We decided to check out Cantina Laredo. They made our guacamole fresh at the table and my soft tacos were delicious. The dinner was fun and was filled with lots of gossip and psychobabble...a perfect evening in my eyes!

Cantina Laredo

Bear with me this week as I try to get caught up and back into the swing of things! And to all of my fellow Louisianans, I hope you are all having an amazing Mardi Gras!! I am incredibly homesick right now!

Happy Love Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone is having a fun day with their sweethearts and loved ones. What is everyone doing today/tonight? Hubby has a mountain bike race today, so I'm doing school work (as always), but tonight we are going to a comedy club with my cousin and her husband. As strange as it may sound, Valentine's Day has always been my least favorite holiday. My favorite Valentine's Days were those I celebrated with my girlfriends in college. Even though we had boyfriends, we always spent Valentine's Day together in what we called an Anti-Valentine's Day. We would spend the day shopping and pampering ourselves. We would treat ourselves to a fabulous dinner at the best restaurant in town, then have a girls night out.

In addition to our new Bibles, hubby and I also exchanged these books last night:



I can't wait to start reading these! I have heard nothing but good things about this book series. My sorority did a Bible study with The Power of a Praying Woman and it was amazing, so I can't wait to see the impact of the power of prayer on my marriage. And I think praying for your spouse and marriage is pretty romantic, don't you?

I am also thankful that I received the Love Ya award from Erin at Texan Couture!


Rules do accompany this honor:
“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”!

I give the award to:

Serious Shopaholic
Chic & Pink
Steak & Cakes
A Sweet Soft Southern Thrill
Park Avenue Princess
The Fabulous Life of a Southern Belle
Downtown Southern
With Love from New Orleans

Something special for you...

For those of you interested in the financial series at my church that I've been raving about, I have a special treat for you! I just discovered that the church website hosts videos of each week's sermon, along with the sermon notes. The video from the first sermon in the series is up and can be found here.

Check it out when you have some down-time. The second sermon in the series should be up this weekend. Enjoy!

Sometimes all you need is a cup of tea...

I can't believe it's already Thursday. When you don't have enough hours in the day to do everything, the week certainly flies by! I have one more week to work on my CCE before handing it in. I also have a very difficult exam next week, but last night I received a great blessing! I was also supposed to have a Stats exam next week and it got postponed. I am so thankful because I would have had no time to study for it. Once I get through this rough couple of weeks, hubby and I have some fun things planned that I can't wait to share with you.

Meanwhile, during these times of extreme craziness and stress, I try to find joy in the small things. So this week I was absolutely delighted to discover this tea:
It tastes almost identical to the tea used in Starbuck's London Fog tea latte! I have been sipping on this during class...which makes learning about the amygdala and hippocampus a little more bearable.

Another incredible joy that has come into my life this week is this Bible study:


I am doing this study with the girls from my life group class and it is AMAZING. Have any of you ever done a Beth Moore study? This is my first one and I'm just blown away. I've been doing the independent study assignments each morning before class, and I feel like it's been a great way to start my day.

Well, I'm off to school to learn how to do therapy (not my favorite thing in the world). We'll see if my new tea helps me get through the afternoon :)

Life changing...

I apologize for having been a neglectful blogger lately. I am still working on my CCE, so life is still crazy.

Last week, I mentioned a new series we are starting at church on becoming financially free. This series is literally changing my life. I feel a joy and contentment with my life that I haven't felt in many years. I highly encourage you all to pick up your Bibles and read Matthew 6:22-34. It really puts things into perspective and is so applicable for life today.

After attending church and our life group yesterday, hubby and I decided to forgo our original Valentine's gift plans for something much more special. He was planning on getting me a necklace from Tiffany and I was going to get him some expensive thing he wanted for bike riding. Instead, we decided to go to the bookstore together and buy each other new devotional
Bibles.

Here's the new one I got:

And here's the new one he got:

We had such an amazing time picking these out together, and I can't wait for us to have devotional time together each night. These Bibles are so much more meaningful than a Tiffany necklace or an expensive gadget. I am so blessed to have a hubby who is a Christian and can share in this journey of spiritual growth with me.

Although I am feeling incredibly stressed, I am filled with so much joy today. I hope that it finds you as well.

Love at first sight...

I will be the first to confess that I have an inner nerd residing deep inside of me. It pretty much takes someone with an inner nerd to devote themselves to 500 years of school right? (As much as I joke about being a career student, even I am sometimes taken aback by the fact that I have now been in school for 21 consecutive years.)

One of the fun things about doctor school is that we all have inner nerds. We all get excited over fresh school supplies, newly revised psychological assessments, and gadgets that make our stressful lives a little easier. In doctor school, it's perfectly normal to see someone fish a pencil bag of brightly colored highlighters and Post-It flags out of an expensive designer handbag. Immaculately dressed girls manage to pull around suitcases full of research articles and dissertation materials while looking fabulous in 4 inch heels. We speak in psychobabble even on martini night. Yes, doctor school is the perfect place to feed your inner nerd.

So you can imagine the delighted squeals of my inner nerd when I spotted these popping up at school:


It is perfectly tiny and PINK! A classmate sitting across from me in Stats tonight had hers out typing notes and I must have stared at it all night. I sat daydreaming of pulling my own little pink computer out of my bag during class, happily typing notes. Or toting it with me to my clinical training so that client reports would always be at my fingertips. I always worry about toting my Vaio around at school and training because I'm so worried that something is going to happen to it. But this little cutie will fit right in my handbag!



Naturally, I ordered one as soon as I got home from Stats. And the price on these little lovelies is amazing...perfect for any student or recessionista on a budget. It should be here sometime next week! Maybe I will actually enjoy stats now...

Thought of the Week

Well, I have nothing fabulous to report today because, as yall know, I have been crazy busy with my CCE (see previous post). However, I really wanted to share with you something I heard at church yesterday.

It's no secret that a lot of people are struggling financially these days. And a lot of people, myself included, are striving to become more financially secure this year. I have been a hardcore shopaholic for, oh, about 26 years (I think I came out of the womb screaming "I want!"). So needless to say, trying to become financially responsible has been a HUGE challenge for me. The past few months I have prayed about it constantly.

Well, my prayers were answered because yesterday at church we started a series on becoming financially free. It turns out that Jesus had a lot to say regarding money. I am super excited about this series. I found a lot of the message to be incredibly profound, but this one thing REALLY stuck with me:

"We buy things we don't NEED with money we don't HAVE to impress people we really don't LIKE."

I started thinking about it, and this is so true! I mean, really, do I NEED $300 jeans? (No.) And do I really HAVE the money to buy $300 jeans? (No.) And who even cares if I have $300 jeans? (I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who judged my character based on the fact that I have $300 jeans anyway.)

I have a feeling that this 7 week series is going to be life changing for me. Will I become a reformed shopaholic? I can't wait to find out :)